


came in eighteen to one

by voodoochild



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Christmas on the road, Food Issues, Gen, Holidays, Male-Female Friendship, Non-traditional holiday celebrations, Team as Family, background mentions of finn/bayley, bayley is having a shit holiday, mentions of money issues, oblique mentions to roman's whatever-it-is with his boys seth and dean, roman is also santa, roman is the locker room mom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-24 08:55:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13210323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild
Summary: Christmas is weird when you work for WWE, but some traditions remain. No matter how much you might wish otherwise.





	came in eighteen to one

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the best Christmas song in existence, "Fairytale of New York" by the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl. Takes place on the 12/25 Raw. Yes, I know, I'm super-late, but the Christmas to New Year week is sort of busy for me.

She knew what she was getting into when she signed with WWE.

(That's a lie. Everyone thinks they know. When you're sharing a Motel 6 room with your fake enemy and finding out someone in Germany has charged $800 to your debit card, and getting up at 4 am on Christmas Day to leave your boyfriend and your dog to fly to a show, then you actually know.)

The hotel room is why she's still here. It's not the pin she'd eaten an hour ago, that's booking and if she'd learned anything from Matt, it's that there are three constants in the world: death, taxes, and Kevin Dunn's shit booking with women. So yeah, it sucks to lose, but she's more worried about having to deal with Paige for an entire night because of a reservation error.

Paige, she supposes, isn't an awful roommate. It's just that she's not Sasha and she's now closer to other people that Bayley doesn't particularly care for. All Bayley wants is to relax with some music and her DS, but she knows Paige will be shrieking over the phone to people and wanting to blast screamo until 3 am. Plus, Paige is kind of a jerk to Sasha and therefore, Bayley will job to Paige tonight, but she's not going to be happy about it.

She has a couple choices, she thinks, as she sits half in her gear in Female Talent. She can get changed, drive back to the motel, and eat some coffeepot ramen before attempting to pass out. She can sit here until the end of the show, scrounge something from catering, and decide what to do about the motel later. She can use her emergency credit card to get another room, which definitely means a lot more ramen in her future.

Well, whatever it is, she knows it's going to have to start with her changing out of her ring gear, so she peels off the KT tape and unlaces herself out of her top. She'd gotten the boots and tights off, but she'd just kind of - stopped. Sitting in her leggings and sparkly silver and black top, the heating system banging and echoing through the empty locker room. Too much in her head and Sasha already gone, grabbing a late dinner with Sarath.

She pulls on the first bra and tee shirt she finds in her bag - an oversized Burn it Down shirt she thinks she might have stolen from Seth at the gym - and runs a brush through her hair before finding where she'd thrown her sneakers. She's hopping around, stubbing her toe and trying to find her cell phone when someone knocks on the door.

"Where's my favorite Christmas elf?" 

It's Roman, which throws her - he'd wrestled the 10:00 spot, shouldn't he be long gone?- and she yells "door's open" while spotting her phone on the shelf of her locker. He comes in with his hands full of bags, and tilts his head at her.

"Oh no. This ain't gonna do, kid."

"What?" she asks, sliding her phone into her bag and turning around. 

"Okay, first of all, I know you haven't eaten all day, because Sasha said you bailed on lunch, and protein bars don't count. Me and Seth went in on Jim's hot dogs and everybody else ate all the sausage, but there's a couple beef ones left, and I hijacked a Manny's tray from catering. So grab a plate, sit with me, and eventually, tell me what the hell's going on."

"Wow, okay Mom," she teases, but he ignores her and digs two bottles of Corona out of the bags. "Thanks for the food, but I'm fine."

He eyebrows at her. "Yeah, cause you looked completely fine earlier, stomping past Seth and Kurt and Cesaro while yelling at Mandy."

"She fucked up the drop toehold, dude. How you fuck up a drop toehold I don't know, but she did and now my knee hurts."

"Hurts like-?"

"Hurts like I twisted it, Roman. Not anything worse. I'm - ugh, I'm just annoyed, and you're playing Mom. Sorry." Which is - it's just Roman, she knows this, he reflexively parents pretty much everyone - but it's bothering her today. He patiently just hands her a plate of deli stuff, turkey on rye with extra mustard, salad, and two brownies, and she sighs. "And I have to room with Paige until tomorrow, and my debit card got hacked, and it's Christmas and I'm not in San Jose."

"That sucks," Roman says bluntly, twisting her beer open, handing it to her, and picking up his own sandwich. "Ain't gonna sugarcoat it, Bay. That's a lot of unnecessary shit to deal with."

"I sense a 'but' coming."

"But," he drawls, grinning at her, "this is why you got us. The locker room. You don't think the rest of us want to be home on Christmas? Or have ever subsisted on protein bars, cereal, and ramen?"

She doubts Roman has ever endured the latter, but the ex-indy gang - Seth and Joe and Sasha and Cesaro and Finn and Mickie and a bunch of the guys over on Smackdown? They've had times when there's been negative numbers in their bank accounts just like hers. She's been part of more "hey, we're buying ____ dinner this week" collections than she can remember, and she knows she shouldn't be ashamed to ask for help.

"I had a cupcake earlier," she says faintly, and bites into a tomato. 

"Cupcakes aren't dinner," he retorts, and seriously, he's leaning into the parental thing hard. "You missed the gift swap, too. Didn't care, or didn't buy anything?"

"I got Sasha, and I gave her her present."

"Not the same."

"Roman, oh my god, I bought her the new Xenoblade Chronicles for the Switch, it's not like the entire locker room had to see."

They eat in silence, and she feels vaguely resentful. She knows he's just doing his locker-room-leader thing, which she'd probably take seriously too, if the Undertaker had personally charged her with being the new team mom. There have been other pep talks - like after Extreme Rules and the kendo stick bullshit - and she does appreciate it, but sometimes you just want to be left alone to wallow.

"The thing is..." he starts, and she tries valiantly not to sigh, "traditions are traditions. Even when you're hurt, like how we passed around Dean on FaceTime. Even when you're feeling like shit. You think Bryan wanted to do locker room Christmas, either? Or hell, Sasha hates Christmas and Sami doesn't celebrate, but they still sat around with the rest of us. Traditions make the rest of this worth it."

She sets aside her plate. "I know," she says, twisting the hem of her shirt between her fingers. "I know it does. I just don't want to be around people. I don't want to hear the New Day singing 'Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer' and I'm gonna punch Lexi if she forces one more Christmas cookie on me."

"Yeah, okay. I get that, I do. You weren't with the roster yet, but two Christmases ago, I was the biggest dick to everyone during locker room Christmas. Just stupid, family stuff, but I let it get to me and took it out on the party. Dustin made me apologize to everyone."

"Do I have to do that?"

"No. You have yet to be as big of an asshole as I was, so I'm not gonna do that. You did miss a pretty awesome party, though."

"Thanks," she says, and he shrugs. She eats one of the brownies, and licks a bit of chocolate off her thumb. "Any other year I'd be in a Santa hat making Karl chug eggnog too. Did he really puke on Doc?"

Roman quickly swallows his beer before he laughs. "All over his shirt. Finn was practically crying, he was laughing so hard. Lost his reindeer antlers."

She grins, picks her plate up again and takes a bite of turkey sandwich. "Sad I missed Finn in reindeer antlers."

"Gotcha covered, kid," he says, digging his phone out of his jacket pocket and pulling up the photo of Finn in one of AJ's ugly Christmas sweaters and reindeer antlers. "Adorable little fucker."

"You're telling me."

"That ain't a secret, is it?" He finishes a swallow of beer. "You and Finn."

"It's - complicated." She knows it's a lame answer, especially when he raises a Rock eyebrow. Saying that to Roman is preaching to the choir of weird and complicated personal lives, but finding the words is hard. "We dated once. A couple months while we were on the indies and a couple months in developmental. We're both with other people now, but, you know, the business and traveling and stuff, there have been a few times we had to clear with our partners."

"Been there, Bay. For what it's worth, he's a good guy, and if he were being a dick to you, I'd have to kick his ass. And since I didn't get the chance to give you this at the party, here." He digs into his wallet and pulls out a folded piece of paper. Passes it over to her. "Merry Christmas."

She opens it - a room reservation for tonight at a pretty nice hotel. "What the shit, dude?"

"Hey, it ain't like that," he teases, with an overblown wink. "You don't wanna room with Paige, you don't have to. You didn't actually go to the present swap, so you should know that I got you. Bought you a couple video games you already have, so Sasha filled me in on the room thing and I figured this is a better present."

It's probably the nicest present she's ever gotten, and she's even a little choked up over it. 

"Thank you so much." She goes over and hugs him carefully, as he's balancing a plate on his knees and has a fork in one hand and a beer in the other. "Seriously, you are the best locker room mom and Secret Santa."

"Hell yeah I am. You're buying me a hat next year," he says, but it does what it intends and makes her smile.


End file.
